Samaritan
by Mariel Nightstalker
Summary: Angeal is a good Samaritan. AU SLASH Angeal Hewley/Harry Potter


A/N: I think this completes my trio of Angeal/Harry stories. Or perhaps not.

**Samaritan**

Harry, crumpled and disheveled, stood out in the sterile white of the hospital.

Angeal hadn't known if he'd be able to find him at first, but here he was, a spot of humanity and thick dark hair in this white maze filled with harried nurses and the moans of the sick. He slipped into the chair next to his and handed him a cup of hot, sweet coffee. He had to close Harry's fingers around it and guide his hand up so that he could smell it, silently praying that Harry hadn't slipped into shock while no one was looking.

Harry turned to look at him at last, fingers sluggishly moving in circles on the warm cardboard of his cup. The look in Harry's eyes scared him. He wordlessly wrapped his arms around him, pulling Harry's face into his chest. He wished there was something he could do, some way to stop the nightmare Harry was living in.

They'd met several months ago at a café when Angeal was taking a quick lunch break. Angeal stood behind Harry and saw that he was just short of being able to afford his food. He looked like he was just going to leave without it, so Angeal reached around and paid the missing cash. The cashier accepted this act of charity without batting an eye, and rang him up in record time.

He'd thought the stranger had left, but he was waiting by the newspaper stand with a polite thank-you on his lips. He handed Angeal a paper swan folded out of a napkin and then left with a small smile thrown over his shoulder.

Angeal tried not to think about him after that, but something about that boy stayed in his mind.

He saw him again at a petrol station; he'd very obviously taken a spit bath in their bathroom. He wondered if he was homeless or just traveling and desperate. He wasn't sure if he should greet him; ask him if he remembered him. Just as he made up his mind to not creep him out, Harry strolled past the magazine rack he was perusing. He stopped, turned back, and asked with a smile,

"Hey, are you the bloke that helped me out a few days ago?"

"What? Oh, yeah," he feigned just now recognizing Harry, and tried to keep his grin under control.

They ended up at a coffee house, Angeal treating Harry.

He found out that Harry was sixteen and backpacking with his two best friends. He asked why Harry wasn't with them then, and Harry said that they were a couple and that he liked to give them time to be alone together.

He didn't ask why Harry wasn't in school, or why his face, neck, and hands had dozens of little scrapes and scratches on them. There was something delightfully feral behind Harry's veneer of boyishness, and he was intrigued despite himself. Harry was sixteen, and this was playing with fire, but he couldn't stay away.

His mission here as a part-time bodyguard for a big-time politician was over in two more weeks and he knew himself too well to pretend that he wouldn't try to find Harry again later.

Through some very clever tracking on his part, he found out that Harry was travelling in a seemingly random pattern amongst various caves and natural ruins throughout the countryside. He didn't understand it anymore than he understood why he was following Harry, but it wasn't like he could ask.

Then he saw something he wasn't supposed to see.

And now Ron Weasley, one of Harry's friends, was in a 'muggle' hospital in a coma with severe head trauma. Harry's other friend, Hermione Granger, was sitting in there with him now. Only one visitor was allowed at a time, so Angeal could only assume that Harry had let her hover by her boyfriend's side.

He put his hand on Harry's knee, not knowing what to say.

Harry sagged to the side, dropping his coffee, and wrapped both of his arms around Angeal's middle. A janitor strolled past with a mop and swiped up the black spot on the tile floor without acknowledging them. Harry shook like a leaf in winter wind, and Angeal cautiously returned his embrace.

A million questions zoomed through his mind, but he didn't voice a single one. When Harry wanted to explain to him what the fuck the lights shooting out of sticks had been and who the cultists in black robes were, he would.

"Thank you," Harry whispered, his voice only audible because of the dead silence of their hall. A dull groan reverberated through the wall behind them.

"For what?"

"For being here. I won't ask how you found me, but…thank you."

Angeal didn't reply, but curled a hand into his thick hair and let the dark locks coil around his fingers. He'd always been a softie, and he couldn't stand to leave a kid defenseless and in trouble.

His mother used to call him the Samaritan, after the Bible story of the man that helped a wounded stranger for no reason but kindness.

Harry never did explain what happened that night, and he disappeared completely as soon as his friend recovered. But he showed up on Angeal's temporary doorstep exactly two years later with a sheepish smile and a sandwich identical to the one Angeal purchased for him at their first meeting.

~000~

End Samaritan


End file.
